The Day-Long Tampa-area Nightmare is Over

Hockey fans, breathe easy again. Saturday night’s Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals will be seen locally after all. Sun Sports, which televises Lightning games, has agreed to pick up NBC’s feed for the opening game of the series between the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins. The telecast will begin at 8 p.m. Sun Sports received final approval from Fox, which owns Sun Sports, as well as final clearing by the NHL on Friday afternoon.

NBC is showing the game nationally, but the local NBC affiliate, WFLA-Ch. 8, could not show the game because it is broadcasting its 26th annual All Children’s Hospital Telethon. It appeared the game would not seen because the league could not find an alternate station to pick up the game. That’s when the Lightning stepped in. Working feverishly behind the scenes for the past 24 hours, Lightning officials, in conjunction with the NHL, contacted Sun Sports and helped negotiate the deal to assure the Tampa Bay market would not be shut out of the game.

So that’s all done. We’ll see you all tomorrow with picks and likely some more stuff about the Final. See you then!